Chitralekha Zutshi has been awarded the 2005-06 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for her book project entitled Consuming India, Adorning Empire: A Socio-Cultural History of the Kashmiri Shawl.

Melvin Patrick Ely, professor of history and black studies at the College of William and Mary, has been awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History for his book "Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War," thus becoming the second faculty member to win the award while at the college.

When the university faculties of the nation were getting bludgeoned in the press, in Congress and in America's think tanks during the mid-1990s, William and Mary's Kenan Professor of Humanities James Axtell responded.

Ronald Hoffman, director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and professor of history, has received the 2001 Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Award for his book Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland, written in collaboration with Sally Mason.

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Ruffin Tyler have committed $5 million to establish an endowment for the College's Department of History in memory of his father, Lyon Gardiner Tyler--17th president of William and Mary and son of John Tyler, the 10th United States president.